Page 108 of Pretty Lies

And fuckups.

All of it.

“It ended well,” his father repeated with a tone that was sure and smooth. Cory swallowed hard, knowing his father wouldn’t expect a response because that’s not what Damian was trying to do when he knew his boys as well as he did. “And that’s where you have to land, Cory. Not on what ifs or what-could-have-beens … just what is.”

Right.

“As far as we know, this is over,” Damian continued. “Any drugs from the warehouse are gone—certainly off American soil because we can’t find them. The same with your old friend. Good riddance to trash; if he knows what’s best for him, that fuck will stay gone, too. It is time to get back to normal, Cory. Or whatever version of normal you’re looking at now, son. Hmm?”

He thought about that.

Everything his father said.

“A lot’s changed,” he said.

“Has it?”

Cory sighed. “Yeah.”

How could it not?

Della changed everything. His new normal would now include her because he didn’t even consider anything else. Wasn’t that entirely different?

Off to the side, an item he’d hung on the wall caught his attention. The scuffed, worn leather with all its buckles and pins and patches it had gathered over the years made a weight settle on Cory’s shoulders. His father was right where Luis was concerned. It would be best if the guy stayed gone. If the Chicago Outfit caught wind of him anywhere, he’d be a dead man. He already was, really.

But the past was a bitch. And the two of them had never been done.

Everybody else wanted all of this to be finished—it should be. For it all to be over. He knew the truth, though.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” he told his father. “There’s still unfinished business. We should be ready for that when it happens.”

“It never ends.”

Well …

It was their life.

They wanted it.

“Are you good?” his father asked.

Cory headed for the direction of the bathroom. “Yeah, Dad, I’m good.”

•••

The bathroom door wasn’t even closed. Della sat in the bucket chair beside the clawfoot tub, a cigarette dangling from her fingertips while she stared at the black tiles on the wall. In the doorway, Cory watched her.

He wasn’t the only one who liked silence when his mind decided it was time to overthink something to death and back.

With one leg drawn up so her foot could rest on the edge, Della had set her chin atop her arm lying across her bent knee. Her other leg hung over the edge of the chair, bare toes grazing the floor. Those bloody clothes of hers had made a pile in the middle of the bathroom. She had used his white cotton robe to cover her naked body but hadn’t bothered to tie it at the middle.

Flicking the ash from her cigarette to the small to-go cup of coffee that she’d picked up from the place down the street, Della’s shoulders lifted and fell with a heavy exhale. Cory didn’t doubt she had a lot of things on her mind considering the current weight of his own.

“That is not an ashtray,” Cory noted.

Della’s attention finally drifted away from the wall. “You don’t smoke enough for me to use something more appropriate.”

“Neither do you.”